"Heavy users of the H-1B program, such as H-1B dependent employers or H-1B skilled worker dependent employers, have additional obligations, such as offering the job to U.S. workers first and a prohibition on having more than 50 percent H-1B or L-1 workers in their workforce."

Who are these "heavy users"? Doesn't 50 percent sound awfully high in an economy with high unemployment? One always hears how Americans don't want to work at farm jobs that illegals and/or migrant workers take, but does this also apply to STEM jobs? Skepticism here.

I'd be interested in seeing a few actual examples of companies hiring STEM workers, where a full 50 percent of H1B visa holders in the work force makes good sense. There could just be a whole segment of the economy that I'm missing.

Now that the U.S. Senate's bill has passed (S.744 passed June 27, 2013), next up is the House and then a conference committee, etc etc.. IEEE was against an earlier version of the Senate bill; the final bill may be more of a compromise, but IEEE on May 21 was still not pleased. See a summary of the bill here: search by "H-1B visa" to quickly find the passages. I wonder what's going to happen in the House.

The bill raises the annual H-1B visa cap, raises H-1B wage requirements, and requires employers to make significant efforts to recruit U.S. workers. The current H-1B visa cap of 65,000 is replaced with a cap that fluctuates between 115,000 and 180,000 based on a market escalator formula that considers employer demand and unemployment data. The lowest level wage that must be paid to H-1B workers is raised by narrowing the range of wages that employers must pay H-1B workers. Employers are required to place mandatory ads and perform other good faith recruitment to find U.S. workers before hiring an H-1B worker. Employers cannot intentionally displace U.S. workers and must pay an additional fee to place an H-1B worker with another company. Heavy users of the H-1B program, such as H-1B dependent employers or H-1B skilled worker dependent employers, have additional obligations, such as offering the job to U.S. workers first and a prohibition on having more than 50 percent H-1B or L-1 workers in their workforce. The bill also makes it easier for H-1B workers to change employers and limits employers' ability to place L-1 workers with other employers.

This article is very poorly written. STEM graduates of US universities also include foreign students. The writer should provide the breakdown of foreign and American students in US universities for all levels (bachelors, masters, PhDs). And what percentage of these foreign students get a job in the US compared with American ? All these foreign students who get a job in the US also part of H1B numbers, so it's not just graduates from foreign universities. Are foreign students more successful in getting a job compared to American students ?

I'm glad that you responded but I'm trying to avoid "preaching to the choir". Look I don't want to seriously insult ANYBODY but this open STEM positions number is more manipulated than the government-approved unemployment rate the night before a major election, it would be helpful if there were a few less ostriches hiding their heads in the sand here but that's probably asking too much. Nobody would be happier than I would if the politics and the visa wars would just go away, but the economy is terribly weak and everyone is limiting the salaries for new hires as if they had just been told the plans for their primary product had just been hacked and given to senior management at a factory in western (low-cost) China (and in a few cases it probably has). I've been around long enough to remember the old days when there was a "tech track" but nowadays it's assumed anyone who hasn't gone into management by the age of 35 "just couldn't cut it", that's why most outfits have an active (but secret) policy that assures no one inside the company can ever get to see the resume of any candidate over the age of 50 (at a time when most people will have to work until they're 70 or later). It never used to be a problem finding an "honest audience" to talk about career issues but I guess "fiction" (this blog) "follows reality" (today's hyperpartisan politics). Nice to have your presence but I'm afraid the two of us doesn't constitute a quorum!

I don't follow you JeffL_2. Are you insinuating that this study is bogus and that the people that prepared the study were paid off? What evidence do you have to suggest that? And what purpose would it serve these top 100 companies to create the perception that there are a lot of unfilled jobs? Scratching my head over that one.

Wadhwa has been a shill for more visas forever since he fronts for Indian outsourcing companies. If what he says were true then the US would be falling behind the rest of the industrial world. As far as I can see there is no evidence of that and in medical device technology I doubt there is any country close to us in as many different areas.

When I worked in engineering, my company had probably about 50% of its engineers on H1B visas. They paid considerably lower than other engineering companies across the board.

The H-1Bs companies are supposed to use the concept of "prevailing wage" What is the prevailing wage? At best it is the rear view mirror average of the wages in an area. It is not the current or future wage. When I looked for a new job the company had to offer more than what I was making not what they previously paid everybody else. I asked for about 10% more and we settled on about half. The prevailing wage is just past history even if it is up to date (which I doubt). So it is easy for companies to keep their H-1Bs at a lower wage scale using the prevailing wage.

The infrastructure was built during the Cold War and preceeds much of the electronics indistry. In addition, much of it kept the US semiconductor industry afloat when it was about to go under due to dumping by Japan and South Korea. How many people remember that Intel almost went bankrupt until IBM chose the 8088 for the PC, aquired 25% of the company and forced a second source contract with AMD on them.

I was there in the defense industry when massive amounts of government money were pumped into radiation hardening research and the very high speed integrated circuit program by DARPA. I image a lot of that money went to Intel and other US semiconductor manufacturers. It is a partnership not a one way street.

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